Survey finds satisfaction rising at Legislative Research Commission

September 11, 2017

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (Sept. 11, 2017) — The Legislative Research Commission (LRC) is enjoying across-the-board improvements in staff satisfaction and morale, according to a survey conducted by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

Those are the findings of a survey NCSL conducted this year with employees of the LRC, which is the research and support staff arm of the Kentucky General Assembly. The survey mirrored one that NCSL conducted with LRC staff members in 2014, providing an opportunity to quantify the growth of employee satisfaction in recent years.

“Our staff deserves a tremendous amount of credit for embracing change and working together in a shared spirit of collaboration and public service,” said LRC Director David Byerman. “By authorizing us to update these survey results, the President and Speaker have given us the ability to objectively document the remarkable progress LRC has made over the last two years. LRC staff remains unified and focused on providing highly professional support to our legislators and the legislative institution.”

The area that showed biggest change between 2014 and 2017 reflected increased confidence that LRC’s hiring practices are consistent for all job openings. On a four-point scale, employee responses on that topic were almost nine-tenths of a point higher in this year’s survey.

Similar improvements in employee satisfaction were found in response to survey questions on whether the LRC uses non-monetary rewards to acknowledge staff performance excellence and whether the agency promotes a culture of employee innovation.

The 2014 and 2017 surveys were identical but for one exception: The 2017 survey added a question on whether employees approve of the way LRC Director David Byerman handles his job. By nearly a three-to-one margin, workers reported approval for the way Byerman, who joined LRC in October, 2015, leads the agency.

A comparison of the 2014 and 2017 surveys show improvements in 49 of the 54 areas in which employee satisfaction was measured. The three areas that showed slight dips and the two where satisfaction levels stayed the same all focused on the agency’s information technology services, where satisfaction levels were already recorded as being high in 2014 and remained high in 2017.

NCSL is a bipartisan organization that provides research, technical assistance and information-sharing opportunities to state legislatures. The organization has headquarters in Denver and offices in Washington, D.C.